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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26252365">Big, and Loud, and All at Once</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinclairsolutions/pseuds/sinclairsolutions'>sinclairsolutions</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dragon Age - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Accidental Mind Reading, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Background Male Trevelyan/Iron Bull, Gen, background Male Hawke/Anders</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 03:08:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,719</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26252365</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinclairsolutions/pseuds/sinclairsolutions</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Cole has a talent for dragging up the worst possible memories at the worst possible times. Sometimes they're the Inquisitor's memories... Sometimes they're not.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Quiet Life Bingo Fills</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Big, and Loud, and All at Once</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p><b>Content Warning:</b> This work contains several references to Tranquility, descriptions of physical abuse of a mage by a Templar, and a very vague, half-sentence, blink-and-you-miss-it reference to the threat of sexual abuse.</p><p>Thank you so much to Rem and Jem for reading this over and hyping me up! I'm finally posting my first fic thanks to y'all! You're wonderful!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>Zade Trevelyan, pictured below:</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>
      
    </span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“Footsteps heavy on the carpet, too loud, no, no, I can hear them coming, it’s been too many times now, if they catch me they’ll make me Tranquil…”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Cole was muttering again. Not that he ever stopped, really; he was always so deep in someone else’s memories that Zade sometimes wondered how he found his own. This time, it was Zade’s head he’d wormed his way into—hardly the first time—and Zade had learned by now not to pay it much mind. It wasn't as though his companions didn't know how the Templars had treated him in the Circle, and lingering on Cole’s words tended to draw up emotions best left buried. So he let them pass as best he could, focused on the hum of the bard’s lute, the hand of cards in front of him, the tavern’s mouser curled up with its head in the crook of Hawke’s elbow. No Templars here, no Circle, and Bull to chase the memories away later with deep kisses and maybe a silk blindfold if he was lucky. He was safe here. The Circles were gone. The mantle of the inquisition protected him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It was hard to really believe that, however, when Cole would not. Stop. Talking.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“They’ll take him away from me, take me away from myself, no love, no anger, no joy, nothing anymore but obedience, nothing but a Templar slave…”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The memory was nauseating, but it was also not quite right: there had never been a </span>
  <em>
    <span>him</span>
  </em>
  <span> from whom Zade had feared to be parted, and of all the things he had been terrified to lose as a Tranquil, love had never been among them. The incongruity was strange and bitter, like a grain of pepper caught under his tongue, and he shuddered with it. If this was a memory he’d repressed for some reason—and he could think of several reasons he might have done so—he would rather Cole didn’t go around digging it up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In the safety of Hawke’s arm, the cat’s hackles were raised, and it shuffled nervously on the table before settling back down.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“No, Ser, please, Ser, not the brand, I’ll—Yes you will, mage. You’ll do whatever I ask.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Varric cut in before Cole could take that caravan of thought any further. “Uh, kid…” he said. “Maybe give it a rest. I don’t think the Inquisitor’s here for a subscription to Templar Atrocities Monthly.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Weekly,” Zade added under his breath.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Daily,” Hawke piped up, much more loudly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The cat hissed. Good cat, Zade decided.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The quiet that settled over them then was uneasy, swollen uncomfortably with thoughts none of them wanted to be having but at least had the good sense not to say aloud. They flipped their cards over to show their hands, and even Varric refrained from commenting on Hawke’s sad pair of twos—easily the most sedate game of Wicked Grace Zade had ever played. There was something deeply unsettling about it; Zade couldn’t stop his fingers twitching anxiously atop his cards, wearing them down at the corners with friction and sweat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cole was twitchy, too. He gathered his hat in his hands and twisted it until the leather squeaked, loud enough to cover the sound of his heels tapping against his chair. He bit his lip and winced with the pain of it, but it wasn’t enough to contain the onslaught of memories, and they spilled out of him in ragged, gasping breaths.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>“It’s too much, they’re too much, I can’t fight them any longer—you have to fight them, or else you’ll leave your people to—I know, just shut up, I don’t want to hear it, there’s nothing I can do—you can’t let it happen to the others, remember what they did to you—I don’t want to fucking remember it, Justice!”</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Silence.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’d said it with enough force that Maryden’s fingers went still on her lute, the strings letting loose a loud twang on the last note before falling as quiet as the rest of them. All around them, heads turned—not toward their table, but away, as if no one in the tavern wanted to be seen prying into the Inquisitor’s business. Zade appreciated the illusion of privacy, at least, but he did not appreciate the awkward hush that had fallen over the whole building, and after a few moments of it, he felt compelled to say something just for the sake of making noise. “Those… are not my memories, Cole,” was what he decided on, as if that had not been obvious.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cole shook his head. He stared at the floorboards, as if the feeling of so many eyes on him was too much. Zade would have thought so, too, in his place. “You don’t hurt—I mean, you do, but he hurts louder, all the time. So loud I can’t hear anything else.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who does?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cole stretched out his arm and pointed his finger at Hawke—or, rather, at some vague point between his breastplate and gauntlets. “The cat.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hawke snatched the cat into his arms and folded his body protectively over it, and that, more than anything Cole had said, gave him away. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Anders. </span>
  </em>
  <span>In all his years at the Circle, Zade had never heard of magic like this, but it must have been true. Why else would a cat remember Templars and Tranquility? Why else would it speak to a spirit of justice?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fucking shit, Hawke!” Varric must have realized it at the same moment; he cast his tankard aside, ignoring the spilled ale that pooled under his boots as it hit the floor. “How could you bring him here? After what he did to Kirkwall? After what Corypheus did to the Wardens?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What was I supposed to do?” Hawke shot back. “Leave him out there alone? What if the Templars had come for him, or Sebastian? You know what they would’ve done if they’d found him—he’d be dead or worse!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well maybe—” </span>
  <em>
    <span>Maybe he should be. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Zade knew it was what Varric meant to say. Hawke knew. Curled up against Hawke’s shoulder, the tabby cat that was Anders knew. And maybe he didn’t really mean it; maybe he’d just said it in anger and would regret it later. Maybe he was already regretting it, but it was too late to take it back. His face was scrunched up, his teeth gritted, as he said, “Hawke, there’s a thousand people at Skyhold who want him dead, too. This isn’t about freedom or the right thing to do, it’s about—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, what it’s apparently about is the fact that you wish you could’ve just sat there while Meredith murdered every mage in Kirkwall and pretended there was nothing you could’ve done—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Stop it!” Cole shouted, and everyone in the tavern turned to stare at him. His face was hidden under his hat, but what Zade could see of it was red, and he had clapped his hands over his ears. “You’re all too loud—he’s too loud, I can’t....”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zade drifted up to Cole’s side and took him by the shoulder, and the boy leaned into it, his breaths harsh and heavy. “It’s all right, Cole. Come on, some fresh air will do you good.” He led Cole from the tavern, past Cabot and Maryden, who pretended not to see them pass. They went out into the late afternoon sun in silence, and only once they were seated on the stone of the battlements did Cole speak.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You didn’t do anything wrong.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cole gathered his knees close to his chest and tucked them under his chin. “I made Anders hurt,” he said. “I made Varric and Hawke fight each other. And now I can’t make them forget. They’d stop if they forgot.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Zade shook his head. “They were never going to forget.” He certainly hadn’t. Like the two of them, he had the bitterness of past unspoken grudges lurking in his heart, and he remembered every one of them. He remembered Lydia, how he’d come to her with his face still bleeding and the name of the Templar who’d done it like poison in his mouth. He remembered wondering if she’d said anything to the Knight-Commander on his behalf at all, or if she’d just let him suffer in silence for the convenience of it. He remembered waking up one morning hating her for it; he remembered walking out of the Circle without a word to her, and justifying it to himself by pretending she wouldn’t have wanted to hear his reasons anyway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He remembered feeling nothing at all when Vivienne had told him of her passing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It needs to hurt sometimes,” Cole said, as if Zade had said all of that aloud—and to a spirit of Cole's talents, Zade supposed he had. “Big, and loud, and all at once. So it hurts less afterwards.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” was all Zade could bring himself to say.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cole studied him carefully, for a long moment. He pushed his hat away from his face, and his eyes were wide and earnest and full of knowing sadness. “She didn’t hate you back,” he said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know.” Lydia had never had a drop of hatred in her, even when it was desperately warranted; it was one of the things that had always infuriated Zade about her. He had never once doubted that she’d borne none for him. It made his own hatred sting that much more harshly. “I know she didn’t.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She could have done better, but she didn’t. She was sorry about it. That’s why she sent you to the Conclave—she wanted someone to do better for you, and she thought you were the only one brave enough to do it right.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s…” It was a lot to hear. All this time, he’d imagined Lydia had sent him there for the sake of dragging him back to the Circle, a peace offering to the one rebel mage she’d thought she might still have influence over. He hadn’t thought… But it made sense. If she’d cared for him, even to the end, it made sense that she would offer him the only thing he’d ever wanted: a voice in his own future. “Thank you, Cole,” he said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When he turned his head, Cole was gone.</span>
</p>
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